RANK PREVIOUS COMPANY
1
1 Monsanto
Hawai`i
2
2 Weinberg
Foundation
3
3 Dowling
Co.
4
4 Maui
Electric Co.
5
5 Makena
Resort
6
8 Maui Land & Pineapple Co.
7 6
Tesoro Hawai`i
8
7 Wailuku
Water Co.
9
10 Hawaiian Telcom
10
9 Alexander
& Baldwin
SUITE LIFE
It isn’t often a big landowner moves up the Maui 10 chart because
its signature hotel announces it will close for six months starting
this summer, but Maui Land & Pineapple isn’t your typical
landowner. Starting July 2 of this year, the Ritz-Carlton Kapalua—built
atop land leased from Maui Land a mere 14 years ago—will undergo a
major renovation costing $95 million, according to the Jan. 17 Honolulu
Advertiser. The trick is that the Ritz-Carlton—one of the most
luxurious hotels in all of Hawai`i—will be going partially condo. The
hotel room count will drop from 548 to 470, and for the first time the
hotel will sell off 107 suites for at least $895,000 each. “I think
there’s a lot of pent-up demand,” Jerry Landeck, a senior partner with
hotel owner Gencom Group, told the paper. “We feel we have a winning
combination of residential use and legendary Ritz-Carlton hotel
service.” While not a timeshare—like virtually everything else that’s
being built on the Westside—the new Ritz-Carlton will affect the region
in much the same way: owners don’t patronize restaurants nearly so
often as hotel guests. Considering how much of the Westside economy
hinges on the service industry, this could eventually be a very big
deal.
GOOD CALLS
After many, many months of abysmal customer service—so much so they
had to call in the services of an outside contractor—Carlyle
Group-owned Hawaiian Telcom finally in December 2006 managed to achieve
a level of answering 70 percent of calls from curious, concerned or
just plain pissed off customers within 20 seconds. This achievement,
still shy of the 85 percent figure mandated by the state Public
Utilities Commission, occurring in what is traditionally a slow month
for customer services calls and a year that has seen a ridiculously low
36 percent response average, is nonetheless evidence of marked
improvement. I’m sure it will please the state investigators who will
spend much of this coming year looking into the phone company’s
customer service troubles. MTW
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